Welcome to our first FutureEd monthly update.
The past month has been a busy
one
f
or our new think tank at Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy.
Our website
launched March 2 with
Sound and Fury blog posts, Connect the Dots graphics, FutureEd Index stats and lots of other content.
With President Trump releasing his "skinny budget" for fiscal year 2018, we've published an interview with Harvard professor and
research advisor Martin West on the spending plan, and we've parsed
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's praise for a proposal that includes substantial cuts for her department. We also took a deep dive into the
Indiana voucher program, which could provide lessons for Trump and DeVos as they pursue their private school choice agenda.
Recognizing that good teaching is central to a good education, we published pieces by
author Paul Tough explaining how teachers add value beyond test scores and by
senior fellow Steve Cantrell on the lessons he learned helping to lead the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's work on measuring teacher performance.
Finally, our team is working with the Education Writers Association and Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy to get ready for
EWA's 70th national conference, set for May 31 to June 2 at Georgetown. We hope to see many of you there.
We are pleased to be a solution-oriented source of sound analysis for policymakers, practitioners, and other education influencers, and we
are excited to work with you in the days ahead.
Best wishes,
Tom
Thomas Toch
Founding Director
ttoch@future-ed.org
@thomas_toch
